When your team is scattered across cities, countries—or even continents—building a strong company culture can feel like an uphill battle. The days of in-person onboarding lunches and casual office chats are becoming rarer. But that doesn’t mean you can’t create connection, consistency, and community. You just have to be more intentional about it. And one of the smartest tools at your disposal? Training videos.
In a remote-first world, where team members often meet for the first time through a screen, the little things matter more than ever. It’s no longer just about transferring knowledge or ticking compliance boxes. It’s about creating an environment where people feel seen, valued, and aligned—even from thousands of miles away. A well-crafted training video isn’t just a passive information dump; it’s an invitation into your company’s world.
The right training content can set the tone for how new hires perceive your culture from day one. It can show them not just what you do, but how you work together, what you stand for, and why they matter to the bigger picture. Done well, these videos can transform a remote team from a loose collection of individuals into a connected, energised community.
Let’s explore how you can use training content not just to educate remote employees, but to welcome them, inspire them, and make them feel genuinely part of something bigger.
Start with a Warm, Human Introduction
First impressions matter—especially when people are joining remotely. Your very first training video should feel welcoming, personal, and a little bit informal. Introduce the faces behind the company, from the founder to team leads. Share a little about the company’s origins, its mission, and why everyone is excited to have a new member on board.
Don’t just stick to dry facts—add anecdotes, a few laughs, and even a behind-the-scenes glimpse of office life (or remote life) to humanise the experience. You could include short interviews with team members sharing what they love about working at the company, or snippets of company celebrations, events, or funny team moments. This helps new employees see the real people they’ll be working with, not just titles on an org chart.
You’re not just ticking a box here; you’re laying the foundation for a sense of belonging. A friendly video beats a bland PDF any day. When people feel personally welcomed from day one, they are more likely to engage, participate, and invest emotionally in their new workplace. This emotional connection can massively influence long-term job satisfaction and retention—so it’s well worth getting it right.
Bring Core Values to Life Visually
Most companies list their values somewhere on a website or in an employee handbook. But how often are they actually lived and felt? Video lets you breathe life into those abstract ideas.
Create short clips for each value, using real examples from the team. If one of your values is “innovation,” show a project that broke new ground. If it’s “teamwork,” spotlight a moment when collaboration made the impossible happen. Seeing real people embody your values makes them far more relatable—and memorable.
You can also feature customer success stories, community projects, or internal initiatives that align with your values. For example, if “sustainability” is a key principle, show what actions your team takes to support it—from eco-friendly office setups to green product launches. By translating words into stories, you turn passive statements into active, aspirational realities.
Animations, on-screen text, and authentic voiceovers can make the content even richer. Encourage different teams to share their interpretation of the values, which shows that values aren’t just imposed from the top down—they’re embraced across the organisation. This kind of emotional storytelling helps new employees understand not just what your company does, but why it matters.
Make Your Leaders Visible and Approachable
In a remote setup, it’s easy for leadership to seem distant or faceless. Training videos can change that.
Have your managers and senior staff record short videos introducing themselves, sharing their leadership style, and offering an open door for communication. When a new hire sees a smiling manager saying, “If you ever have questions, my inbox is always open,” it immediately breaks down barriers and builds trust.
You could go a step further by letting leaders talk candidly about their career journeys, leadership philosophies, and even challenges they’ve faced. Hearing a manager say, “I also struggled when I first moved to remote working” can be incredibly reassuring for someone new. It humanises leadership and makes senior figures feel accessible rather than intimidating.
Consider setting up regular “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) sessions via video, where employees can submit questions in advance. Even a quick monthly video update from the leadership team about company progress, upcoming goals, or simply a ‘hello’ can maintain a strong sense of visibility. Building an approachable leadership culture through video fosters a greater sense of trust, transparency, and alignment—even when face-to-face meetings are few and far between.
Create Day-in-the-Life Videos
One of the biggest challenges for remote joiners is imagining what ‘normal’ looks like when there’s no office to observe. A brilliant way to bridge this gap is through day-in-the-life videos.
Ask team members from different departments to film snippets of their daily routines—team meetings, brainstorming sessions, coffee breaks, and even pet cameos. It helps newcomers visualise the work rhythm and normalises the quirks of remote life, from Slack messages at odd hours to video calls with dogs barking in the background.
You can take this further by creating themed days—like “Monday Motivation” or “Friday Wins”—where employees share how they kickstart or wrap up their weeks. Show the variety of work setups, too, whether someone is working from a home office, a café, or a co-working space. Highlight different time zones, working patterns, and communication styles. Including honest moments, like taking mental health breaks or managing family interruptions, helps make remote work feel more real and less idealised.
To keep the content fresh and engaging, consider asking different teams to “host” a week, curating short clips from their members and showcasing unique departmental cultures. Even a simple time-lapse of a working day, or a video diary reflecting on highs and lows, can make a huge difference. These videos can create powerful touchpoints for new joiners to feel less isolated and more connected to the team’s everyday reality, giving them a clear sense of how they can successfully fit into the culture.
Reinforce Communication Norms
Miscommunication can derail remote teams faster than technical issues. Training videos can set clear expectations around communication right from the start.
Create tutorials on how and when to use your tools—email, Slack, Zoom, project management platforms—and explain response time expectations, meeting etiquette, and where informal chat is encouraged. This proactive approach saves countless misunderstandings and frustrations down the line.
Don’t just focus on the tools themselves; include practical tips, such as how to write concise emails, when to escalate an issue to a video call, and what “urgent” really means in your organisation. Highlight the importance of clarity, tone, and etiquette—especially in text-based messages where intent can easily be misunderstood. You might even create scenario-based videos showing good and bad examples of remote communication.
Also address the ‘unwritten rules’—things like using emojis to soften feedback or setting status updates to reflect availability. By framing communication norms in a friendly, instructional way, you help remote employees feel more confident in how they engage with colleagues, ultimately leading to smoother collaboration and stronger team cohesion
Showcase Success Stories
Celebrate wins publicly—and on video. Whether it’s landing a big client, hitting a project milestone, or someone simply smashing a personal goal, capture those stories.
These videos do double duty: they show that hard work is recognised and appreciated, and they model what success looks like in your remote culture. Plus, they inject much-needed positivity and motivation into the team atmosphere.
You can spotlight individuals, teams, or even customer testimonials that demonstrate the impact of your work. Interview employees about what made the project a success, the challenges they overcame, and how it reflects the company’s values. Use storytelling techniques: build a beginning, middle, and triumphant ending to make it more engaging.
Consider creating themed awards—such as “Innovator of the Month” or “Team Spirit Award”—and announce winners through celebratory videos. Even better, get peers to nominate each other and record short messages of appreciation. This approach strengthens peer-to-peer recognition, a vital ingredient for keeping morale high in a remote setup. Over time, these success story videos can become a rich library that not only celebrates past achievements but inspires future ones.
Keep It Relatable and Real
The temptation with training content is to make it polished to the point of sterility. Resist that urge.
Your videos don’t have to look like Netflix productions to be effective. In fact, a little imperfection—laughter, a tech hiccup, a candid moment—makes them feel more authentic. And authenticity is exactly what helps new employees connect on a human level, even through a screen.
Instead of obsessing over perfect lighting, flawless edits, and scripted speeches, focus on genuine energy. Let your team members speak in their own words rather than memorising lines. Show real working environments—whether that’s a stylish home office, a cluttered desk, or a kitchen table surrounded by children’s toys. This honesty paints a true picture of remote life and helps break down the unrealistic expectations that can make new employees feel like outsiders.
Relatable content creates an emotional bridge. When newcomers see that even senior leaders sometimes have to ask for tech support, or that established team members still fumble with new tools, it humanises the entire organisation. It sends the powerful message that it’s okay to be imperfect, to ask for help, and to grow at your own pace. In a remote culture, where imposter syndrome can lurk in the shadows, a little realness can go a very long way towards fostering confidence, loyalty, and long-term engagement.
Use Interactive Elements Where Possible
Training videos shouldn’t be a one-way broadcast. Keep people engaged by adding interactive elements.
Quizzes, polls, reflection prompts, or even simple “reply to this video with your favourite productivity tip” tasks can make the experience feel more like a conversation. Interaction encourages active learning and helps new joiners feel seen and heard right from the start.
Think about incorporating decision points throughout the video—mini “choose your own adventure” moments where viewers select what topic they want to dive deeper into next. You could also use embedded questions that prompt instant feedback, or quick polls that show collective team responses in real time. Platforms like Vimeo, Wistia, or even interactive PDFs linked to videos make this easier than ever.
Don’t underestimate the power of small, low-tech interactions either. Asking a new employee to post a short introduction video of themselves in a private group, or to comment on their favourite learning from a session, builds confidence and connection. Even including a simple emoji reaction to certain parts of the training helps make people feel involved.
Ultimately, interactive training shows employees that learning is not passive—it’s active, evolving, and two-way. It encourages curiosity, reflection, and conversation, making the entire onboarding and training journey feel far more vibrant, inclusive, and personal.
Foster Peer-to-Peer Learning
Not all training should come from the top down. Some of the most valuable lessons come from colleagues who’ve been in the trenches.
Set up a “new joiner advice” series where existing team members share tips they wish they’d known when they started. This not only helps new employees find their footing faster, but also reinforces a culture of support and collaboration.
Peer-to-peer learning builds a sense of shared ownership over company knowledge. It encourages employees to see themselves as both learners and teachers, fostering a healthy exchange of insights and experiences. You could create short video diaries, quick Q&A interviews, or even group discussion panels where employees share lessons learned from recent projects. The informal, experience-based nature of these videos makes them highly relatable and practical.
Encourage diversity in your peer contributors too—highlight different roles, seniority levels, locations, and backgrounds. This representation helps new joiners find relatable figures across the organisation, not just their immediate team. It also showcases the company’s commitment to inclusivity and cross-team learning.
The real beauty of peer-to-peer training is that it evolves naturally over time. As each generation of employees adds their voice to the library, you create a living resource that grows with your company. It’s a powerful reminder that in a remote world, knowledge-sharing isn’t just top-down—it’s community-driven.
Regularly Update and Personalise
One of the beauties of video is that it’s easy to refresh. Don’t let your training library gather dust.
Update videos with new faces, recent projects, and fresh insights. You can even personalise onboarding playlists based on the department or role. A marketing hire and a tech hire shouldn’t watch the exact same videos—show them that you value their individual path within the company.
Keeping your training content fresh is more than just a practical task—it sends a message. It tells new employees that your company is dynamic, responsive, and invested in continuous improvement. Regular updates ensure that cultural references stay relevant, tools and systems are accurately explained, and the energy of your content remains high.
You might create quarterly or biannual video refresh cycles, where different teams contribute updates. Celebrate big changes—new office openings, major rebrands, new leadership introductions—with short video announcements. Personalising onboarding playlists based on role, seniority, or even region can make new hires feel immediately understood and supported.
You could also include optional deep-dive videos for employees who want to explore more about your industry, company history, or advanced tool usage. Giving people choices in their training journey empowers them to learn at their own pace and in their own way—another hallmark of a healthy, inclusive remote culture.
Final Words: Training Videos as Cultural Glue
Training videos are so much more than an onboarding task to tick off a checklist. They are a vital thread in the fabric of your remote culture. They introduce your people, your purpose, your ways of working—and they remind every employee, no matter where they are in the world, that they’re part of something meaningful.
Invest time and care into your video content, and you’ll build more than skills. You’ll build connection, loyalty, and a culture that thrives even at a distance.
Think of training videos as an ongoing conversation between your company and your employees. They’re an opportunity to show that you don’t just care about productivity—you care about people. A good training video says: “You belong here. Your growth matters to us. We are in this together.”
Remote teams don’t have watercooler chats or office events to naturally absorb culture. Instead, every piece of content you produce becomes part of the cultural scaffolding that holds your team together. Training videos, when done thoughtfully, are not just about telling new hires what to do—they are about showing them who you are.
In a world where remote work is increasingly the norm, using video to stitch together people, stories, and values isn’t just smart. It’s essential.
If you’d like to take your company’s training videos to the next level feel free to get in touch with us at Spiel—we’d be happy to help.
